If at first.

 

A couple of New Years' back, I confessed to having been a lazy geek, and resolved to do better.  To be truthful, as with many New Year's resolutions, results have been mixed, and I've decided that it's time to formulate a more specific plan to address my shortcomings in the area of geekness.

To be fair, it's not as bad as I make it sound.  I've certainly managed to keep up with the major genre motion picture releases*, and even attended a couple of the less successful films, such as Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner 2049, not to mention outright mistakes like Alien: Covenant.

However, I feel that a more dedicated geek would have taken a look at The Dark Tower, War for the Planet of the Apes, or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets**, and I agree with my girlfriend Karli*** that not seeing Hidden Figures was a mistake on my part - which I plan to address now that it's on Netflix™.

(Just for the record, I have no regrets about skipping The Great Wall or The Mummy, but I'm open to arguments to the contrary.)

 

Sadly, my record for television series is abysmal.  Of course I watched Doctor Who, and both Star Trek:  Discovery and Stranger Things 2 made the viewing list, but there have been a lot of things like The Orville, Legion, The Dark, The Handmaid's Tale, the whole Daredevil / Jessica Jones / Luke Cage / Iron Fist / Defenders thread, and a host of other programs that probably deserved some attention.

I've also developed a significant reading backlog.  Now, before you panic, don't worry:  I still read as much as ever, but it generally involves ebooks on my iPhone.  But I've never stopped buying  books - real books, paper books - and as a result, I've got a substantial stack in the study at home.

So, part of this year's resolution is to get rid of that particular pile of paper, although, to be honest, pending the space for another bookshelf, those books will just go into the stacks of books that I have read.  Still, it's the thought that counts.

Having laid out the problem, what's the solution?  For the books, my plan is to read at least one paper book every week.  Some of that will replace iPhone reading on the bus, and some of it will replace time spent looking at internet trivia on my iPad before going to sleep - a price I shall gladly pay, to quote the Solomon Kane movie.

It's a bit more challenging to schedule TV time.  When she agreed to move in with me,  Karli*** warned me that she watches a lot of television, and over time we've developed a system where we spend time together after work, then take a little time on our own where she watches television in the living room and I retire to the spare bedroom to play games, surf the Net, and, of course, work on blog postings.

However, she also sometimes visits her friend John on Sunday nights (ironically, to watch either Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, both of which I should probably be watching) or spends time at her sister Stefanie's place (for The Bachelor/ette, which, to be clear, I feel absolutely no desire to watch), and going forward I'm going to schedule TV viewing during those time slots.

And that's the plan!  Wish me luck - I think we're all too aware of how quickly the spirit of a New Year's resolution collapses under the weight of everyday life.  Hopefully this will be easier to stick to than those damn gym visits.

  - Sid

* Interestingly, if you search Google™ for "2017 movie releases", Thor: Ragnarok is listed as a comedy.

** I will be taking care of that last one in the near future, regardless of the less than glowing reviews of the film.  I actually own Ambassador of the Shadows,  the Valerian and Laureline graphic novel by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières that provided part of the basis for the film, and the trailers intrigued me in terms of how Mézières' artwork was translated to the big screen.

*** As previously, my gorgeous girlfriend Karli, to be accurate.